Three years ago, City leaders were talking about remaking South Division Street into a promenade or esplanade to entice developers there and to the four blocks south of Auburn City Hall.
Councilwoman Sue Singer went home one night and roughed out on a napkin a sketch of a business park along South Division from West Main to Second streets, adding colored concrete traffic circles to “bring out” the intersections.
She brought the drawing to City Hall the next morning. City leaders and planners looked, rubbed their chins and began a long process of salting that original concept with their own ideas.
At the open house on the Pedestrian Promenade at the 1 Main Professional Plaza last week, Singer studied the near-final plans that started with her sketch, and smiled. She could still recognize it.
“We’ve been talking about this for a long time,” Singer said. “It’s another step forward, and I’m proud of the City Council for getting it this far.”
City planners and designers and engineers from the Seattle and Tacoma architectural design firm of KPG held the Oct. 28 open house to answer questions and hear what people had to say.
Paul Fuesel, principal of KPG, said the two-lane street will be similar to what is there now. While there will still be on-street parking, the City will widen the sidewalks on the west side of the street, and it will be curbless. Earlier this year, the City bought the old Marvel building on the southwest corner of South Division then tore it down to provide room for the widening.
One technological advance pushed by Councilman Rich Wagner: storm water will drip into the pavement — a mixture of conventional gray and pervious concrete — before it seeps into the ground below the street.
Workers will install underground utilities, replace old clay pipes and bury aerial wires. As Singer first imagined, the intersections will be colored concrete circles, pretty, but tough enough to withstand the pounding of traffic.
“The circles are still there, but now we will have more equal sides of the street with wider sidewalks, so that changed from my original idea,” Singer said.
Designers will finish their work by the end of the year, construction should start next spring and the project will be complete by the end of next year.
“We are trying to use this design not only to renovate this area of town, but also to use some of the design elements that are around town,” said Singer, adding that the design uses the City’s new pedestrian street light standards.
“It’s been designed to feel more like a plaza,” Fuesel said.
Funding for the project comes from $5 million in state, local revitalization financing and a $3 million Economic Development Administration (EDA) grant.
Most residents came away satisfied with what they saw and heard, but some had concerns.
“I think it’s quite an improvement for the downtown area,” said Dave Bowen, owner of LuminArt Signs. “It would be kind of nice to have an area you could use for a market or a gathering or get together. Auburn doesn’t have community spaces like you find down in Portland. It’s a good place to start.”
One woman, who asked that her name not be used, said while the Pedestrian Promenade would be “absolutely gorgeous,” the time that would lapse between its completion and the actual development of new buildings and businesses concerned her.
“What is the possibility of the follow on? That’s my biggest concern,” said Auburn resident Wayne Osborne. “They’re going to spend millions on this, and hopefully within two or three years, they’ll have development in that area.”
Auburn Senior Planner Elizabeth Chamberlain said developer Spencer Albert’s four-block Auburn Junction proposal is still viable.
“We’re still working with that developer. It’s been ongoing since we first had the agreement with him. We’re renegotiating that right now. We’d be happy to see anything from restaurants to retail to office space, plus we want to see residential down here. I think all of that would make a good mix and help the environment downtown,” Chamberlain said.
The gathering area that extends out of the City Hall Plaza is part of a separate project.
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Project goals
• Create a Pedestrian Promenade in downtown Auburn
• Encourage revitalization and support existing businesses, including property access and on-street parking
• Construct infrastructure improvements to support redevelopment, including undergrounding aerial utilities.
• Provide pedestrian amenities and streetscape enhancements, including street trees and landscaping decorative pavements, street furniture and decorative pedestrian lightpoles with hanging flower baskets.
• Incorporate low-impact development (LID) technologies, including pervious concrete for stormwater infiltration and light-emitting diode (LED) lighting.
KPG
